Hybrid Hardware/Software Detection of Multi-Bit Upsets in Memory
Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/Report › Conference contribution › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Bit flips in main memory can be caused by a multitude of environmental effects, such as heat or radiation, as well as by malicious actors exploiting Rowhammer-style hardware vulnerabilities. The industry-standard countermeasure is SEC-DED ECC memory, which can reliably correct single-and detect double-bit flips in a data word. However, larger multi-bit upsets (MBUs) regularly occur in real-world systems, and – as shown by an analysis in this paper – have a high probability of being miscorrected. Software-implemented hardware fault tolerance (SIHFT) mechanisms can flexibly handle MBUs, but incur significant runtime costs. In this paper, we propose to combine hardware ECC as a low-cost detector and SIHFT as a handler for miscorrected MBUs that recategorizes them as uncorrectable. A preliminary evaluation on the basis of differential checksums shows a 98.5 % reduction in miscorrected silent data corruptions with a very moderate execution-time overhead.
Details
Original language | English |
---|---|
Title of host publication | 2024 54th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) |
Publisher | IEEE |
Pages | 94-97 |
Number of pages | 4 |
ISBN (electronic) | 9798350395723 |
ISBN (print) | 979-8-3503-9573-0 |
Publication status | Published - 27 Jun 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Conference
Title | 2024 54th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks |
---|---|
Abbreviated title | DSN 2024 |
Conference number | 54 |
Duration | 24 - 27 June 2024 |
Website | |
Location | Pullman Hotel |
City | Brisbane |
Country | Australia |
External IDs
ORCID | /0000-0002-1427-9343/work/166764857 |
---|---|
Scopus | 85203820132 |
Keywords
Keywords
- Fault tolerance, Fault tolerant systems, Hardware, Heating systems, Memory management, Runtime, Software